Multi-Service

Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM)

Zhone offers leading Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) solutions based on IEEE 802.3ah industry standards. In 2006, the industry adopted new 802.3ah EFM standards. Zhone has been a pioneer and leader in this area, supplying Ethernet over Copper (EoC) solutions for many years. Zhone’s EFM solution provides service providers with a tremendous ROI due to the utilization of existing copper infrastructure, simplicity in installation and provisioning, high reliability with minimal downtime, ease of management and overall CAPEX savings.

Ethernet in essence has significant benefits including relative ubiquity, loop bonding and high capacity symmetrical capabilities, seamless LAN-to-WAN connectivity, and ease of deployment. Ethernet is quickly replacing ATM/SONET from access to the core and Ethernet interfaces and equipment are deemed more cost effective than ATM/TDM. EoC is used in carrier networks for business services ranging from T1/E1 to SHDSL and DS3 rates.

Loop bonding provides many benefits including effective re-use of existing copper for bandwidth, ability to scale bandwidth to service need by adding copper pairs, lower CAPEX than having to install new fiber and overall performance and reliability relatively comparable to fiber. EFM can ensure loop bonding and ensuing bandwidth of 12.7 Mbps/pair for up to 8 pairs in a bond group using G.SHDSL.bis w/ Extended Rates.

Zhone is an established market leader in loop bonding solutions. Zhone has worked on products providing integrated EoC across the entire family of MSAN and DSLAM systems. In addition, Zhone supports standards based EFM (802.3ah) as well as legacy EoC solutions across CPE products. Zhone’s EoC applications are being used across various applications in SMEs, municipalities, schools, utilities, amongst others. These applications include services like, E-LAN, E-Line with IP SLA, routing, VLANs, Frame relay replacement, T1/E1 replacement using PWE, surveillance, security, traffic monitoring and light metering. Likewise, utilities find it ideal for connecting stations and monitoring sites along a right-of-way.